Posted on 09/15/2014 9:32:57 AM PDT by Dallas59
Warner Bros. has filed a lawsuit against a small bar from Amityville, New York, for playing one of their songs without permission. The track in question is not a recent pop song, but the 80-year old love song "I Only Have Eyes for You" which first appeared in Warner's 1934 movie "Dames."
giacomoMany bars, pubs and restaurants like to entertain their guests with live music, with bands often playing covers of recent hits or golden oldies.
As with all music that’s performed in public, the bar owners are required to pay the royalties, even if there are just handful of listeners present.
Royalty collection agencies take this obligation very seriously and drive around the country visiting local bars and pubs to check whether they obey the law. Those who don’t usually get a bill in the mailbox, and if they refuse to pay up it gets worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at torrentfreak.com ...
There ya go!
The whole arrangement (not Thoroughgood’s tune, but that of fairly collecting and distributing royalties) is a mess. As others have noted, the means to document what is performed, how often, and under what circumstances is enough to make the process wholly unfeasible. I suspect the bigger royalty administrators have a formula of some kind, but it should not be above questioning or appeal, IMO. The key is to objectively measure the amount of revenue received due to cover tunes played, and from there determine how much should go to 1.) the proprietor for his efforts in advertising and promoting the song, 2.) the songwriter for creating the song, and 3.) the agent for collecting and administering royalties. Doubtless there are other fingers that want a piece of the pie.
I don’t know how that would be possible, since we have difficulty understanding what causes us to spend on so much junk in the first place. Did I buy that beer because Thoroughgood’s tune was playing, or because I was thirsty?
Well, they probably believed they were living in a finite universe, and a “limited time” could thus easily be construed to mean, “until time stops.”
I don’t have a link...just my own memory of the incident, but I believe at one time ASCAP sued the Girl Scouts for singing “God Bless America”.
That is so ironic, because the Scouts were a favorite charity of Irving Berlin, and he even appeared with them singing that very song in the movie starring Ronald Reagan called “This Is the Army”.
I am a songwriter myself, and belong to BMI, and although I have received airplay and Internet downloads of a number of my songs, BMI has never contacted me in the thirty years of my association with them! Go figure.
it was to the boy scouts.
but given the hollyweird demographic it would explain their ongoing hatred of the boy scouts.
Indeed.
Disney really seemed to ratchet-up their enforcement efforts after that bumper sticker that said “Hey, Iran...” with Mickey flipping them the bird took the country by storm in the late 70’s.
yep... I’m an ASCAP member... this is ridiculous. I made some good money in the 1980s for airplay.. on FM radio and television.. but having a bar pay royalties? don’t agree with that. I don’t condone it... and I plan on sending off an email to ASCAP, and Warners. bars will just stop playing music... and we’ll have all sports all the time... which we basically already have , in bars.
with streaming... I get pennies for streaming royalities.. last check I received was 5 cents... cost more to print the check.
only people making money on streaming are those that have millions upon millions of streams... Adelle comes to mind.
Google actually pays royalties for most of the songs people post on youtube. There is software that recognizes the tunes automatically, as you can notice even songs posted “illegally” will have the name of the songs and the link to buy it on Amazon below the video.
They just don’t charge the royalties back to the users, instead they make up for it with ad revenue.
Post 23 was quite interesting.
Hopefully you sent some derisive mocking letters to this company’s brass insulting them and their genius rep.
I’d say that the actual damage to Warner Brothers is about 30 cents in Canadian money.
Pretty bad PR for Warner!
Yes it does.
But you must pay IF you do. An Artist cannot stop you from playing the recorded music in a performance, it's part of the deal. Just like Chrissie Hynde cannot stop Rush Limbaugh from using Ohio as his show theme music BUT he must pay the royalty fees to do so. She can complain about it, she doesn't have to accept the royalty check from it BUT she can't stop him from playing it in a performance nor can the publisher etc.
If I had the power to change the law it would be a 21 year patent for an original invention, 14 years for an original work of art or literature and 7 years for a song recording or film/TV show.
AND NO SOFTWARE PATENTS!
I have 3 library cards,covering Boston and the Minuteman and Old Colony library networks. This covers a fairly sizeable portion of Eastern MA.
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Yup,Minuteman is what he has.He said it covers just about every library,except Boston's,within Route 128.He said the selection of CDs is absolutely amazing.
Not quite as good as Carbon Credits but still a nice little income generator.
Idiots in Congress perpetuate this robbery. I think this was adjudicated at the Supreme Court because if Congress had the power to extend the copyright into perpetuity it would be a violation of the Constitution which clearly says copyright and pattens would be for a limited times. Court punted.
Dang, your post was one after I made a h@lf@$$ attempt to say what you said so eloquently.
I would think it’s in the public domain
Minuteman goes almost to 495-——Acton and Maynard.
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